November

This week in the gardens we have begun tidying and putting to bed. I love the task of cutting down the Gunnera and giving them little tent houses for the Winter. By using the leaves as protection against the weather, you feed the plant too. HG and I did look a little sinister walking across the gardens brandishing machetes as the sun went down! 

Dahlias have been cut down and labelled, ready to be lifted for over Winter. Dahlia tubers are susceptible to rotting if you leave them in the soil. We have got away with it before but sometimes it is not worth the risk. Once you have cut the Dahlia down (usually after the first frosts once the leaves have turned blackish), you dig it up and turn it upside down to dry. An amazing amount of water is retained in the hollow stems. It literally pours out sometimes. I have loved the Dahlias. All sorts of colours and shapes.

We have composted Rhubarb and are now forcing it. Time also to prune. We worked on Blackcurrant and Blackberry which is trained onto a fruit cage. Removing old wood which has flowered and tying in new shoots for next year. A rewarding job. I do love tidying!!


The gardens are opening up once more. As we remove plants and foliage, views are expanded. The Veg garden becoming part of the bigger picture again. 

Soon be time for the new plan of the veg garden and where to dig/not dig. The cycle continues.....

Farewell Plot 18b

It is with much sadness mixed with a big sigh of 'phew' that I have finally given up my allotment at Plot 18b. Six years and it has been a delight. It is where my boys ate worms, had stick battles, went fishing with canes, laughed, fought and wondered. Where I began to garden for my family, experiment with veg and where I began to learn alongside my RHS course to retrain as a Gardener.

So for me, Bugs and my Robot Top ( as it was known by my boys) holds a lot of memories. Happily, I wrote a blog which is an amazing record of photos and feelings experienced by the four of us over those years.

Now I work in the Horticulture industry and my boys are growing, needing me in different ways, I find time has been squeezed. I can still grow in our small garden which is enough for now. I manage Beets, Carrots, Salad, Edible flowers, Kale, even Turnips! One day I envisage a new request for a plot, where I will spend my days happily watching the insects and birds and quietly working the soil.

This week at my work gardens, I have been loving the warm Autumn weather, just glorious. A time to pull down crops and re-consider the crops for the hungry gap. At Heale we have lots still on the go: Leeks, Cabbage, two types of Kale, Salads and Rocket and Chicory. The Nasturtiums are such a flash of colour, clambering over the wigwams in the ornamental squares of Box. So too are the Ipomoea and the Gourd flowers hanging over the arches.

In my other work garden, Dahlias and Verbena fill a 'hot border' alongside Fiery Crocosmia and bright Rudbeckia.

Much more to come as Autumn continues, I love the leaves of the Liquidamber that are just on the turn now and the Gunnera will show it's red soon enough.

Lucky for me I can now get my fix at work. I find tremendous peace and calm from the garden, which was once found at my special 5 rod plot. I can leave my little patch of allotment and find new ways in which to grow, hoping that someone else will find as much happiness from the same soil as I did.

Hello September

Moving into September, how the heck did that happen?! Things are feeling on the turn in the garden. Chillier mornings but hot days. Leaves turning orange already or dying back. We have already begun the task of removing Single Cordon Sweet Peas and their canes. They started in the ground as plug plants in April and so 5 months ain't bad at all.

Once the ground has been cleared, HG is already on the move with the next crop.  A dig over of the ground, rake and now we await Beetroot and Rocket as a new crop in a month or so. knowing the sowing/harvesting of crops is such a skill. making sure the ground is used successionally, with no wastage. If a crop fails, HG knows exactly what to do to fill in. What a huge knowledge he has! He has suggested Giant Winter Spinach, so I will get onto that for next week!

Flowers that are still very much going, are Nasturtium 'Chameleon', Ipomoea, Tithonia, Zinnia, Daucus and Sunflower. So much still thriving and in the haze of the low sun, it all looks rather dreamy.

This morning and 7.45 am, the Veg garden was a delight. Birds flitting between crops, sitting on the Apple tunnels chatting away. As I cropped Beans today, amongst the Beans, looking to the sky, I heard the familiar flapping of Swan wings as two Swans flew over my head......special indeed.

This week I have enjoyed cropping Beets, Chioggia (beautiful pink and white stripes inside), Golden and Boltardy (standard purple globe). I also strangely love cropping Raspberries as they are plucked from the plant. What a thing.

I snuck out with the family over the Bank Hol to London town and took my boys up 35 floors to the Sky Garden on top of the Walkie Talkie building. What a view! a real treat. Always good to remember just how much I will always love London, my home for a long time, yet it cannot compare to the space and countryside Heale affords. Two very different beasts.

Back to it

I have had a mini break from gardening to spend some time with my two boys on their school holidays. It is amazing how a mini break can refresh, give a new perspective and make you see things new.

I am umming and aahing about keeping my plot at the moment. I waited 18 months for it back in 2010 and have enjoyed so many fab family times up there. Times to learn, make mistakes, enjoy the rewards, cook sausages with the boys and show them worms and mud. It is where I learnt to love growing and where it all began for my career change post kids. A visit yesterday and it was hairy as hell! Still I manage to find Cucumbers, Courgettes, Raspeberries, Broccoli and Blackberries, oh and Potatoes hiding amidst the weeds. Still my love. Still I will keep it going despite the lack of interest from my family now they are growing up!

Back to work and I think the Veg garden at Heale is looking darn good right now. So much variety in flowers and veg. I cropped all sorts including Cucamelons and Purple Sprouting Broccoli. We have just cropped all of the Charlotte Pots. I am awaiting the beautiful Runners which have clambered to the top of their supports. I managed to refresh the Rocket through picking and trimming and it is good as new for another few weeks. The sights and smells when working with veg are just the icing on the cake. All that work and then you pick Parsely, brush past Crysanths, prune the Mint, Prune Apples and feel the prickles of the Cucumber stems.

All to remind you why you are outdoors and why you are persevering.

I planted Squash atop our huge Compost heap today. Climb to the top and you are looking over a very old wall. A Buzzard flew over my head and called out soaring in the blue sky.

Sharing and growing

The nicest thing about growing has got to be sharing as well. Whether it is chatting about where best to grow a plant, what to choose for a certain soil or how to cook with your favourite veg. It brings people together.

In the garden today, a lovely visitor was telling us how she uses Fennel seeds and stores them in her airing cupboard! Then she added them to Vodka and Strawberry to make a special occasion desert.

On my Allotment after work I had a lovely encounter with a fellow grower named Steve. He is a Pro Gardener too but spends an awful lot of his spare time growing far too many vegetables for him and his Wife to eat.  Steve just loves to grow, try new things and then give it away. He loves to chat about different varieties and pass on all of his tips on how he has developed plants.

Lucky me , I came home with Steve's Elephant Garlic, Carrots, Cucumber and Courgettes.

At work today I planted out Leeks "Porvite'. I love this task, digging up the pencil thick Leeks, trimming them, placing them in a hole and filling with water. They soon perk up like little Soldiers in a row. I cropped a lot of veg today, Broad beans 'Karmazyn' which have peachy/pink beans and Peas. I cropped artichokes and left some to punk it up as they flower with purple spiky tops. Carrot, Beet, Courgette, Salads, Nasturtium flowers as well.

What a delight.

Summer in the garden

There is so much to see and smell in the garden right now. Everything is floaty, tall, colourful, scented. I am in heaven!

At Heale, the Annuals have survived from seed, through pricking out, cold frames and final transplant. A flipping miracle really. With watering and temperature changes successfully dodged, not to mention beasties trying to eat them. We have all sorts going on, Nicotiana, Ammi majus, Daucus, Miribalis, Stock, Zinnia, Tithonia. My favourite though are the pots of loveliness that abound. You can make up whatever you want at this time of year.

At home I have a deep purple Salvia happily living alongside Euphorbia 'Diamond Frost' which has tiny white flowers like a spray in amongst silvery Plectranthus leaves. I also have good old Nasturtiums trailing here and there, which soften any hard landscape. I still have a blue ceramic pot stuffed with Luzula nivea grass, which I grew from seed bought at Chelsea a few years ago. Some of the babies it kindly sent along the border next to the pot are now happily planted in my garden. The green tall grass swaying next to the blue pot. Glorious.

 

In the veg garden, it is going ON! The direct sown Beans are up and we have begun to crop; Broad Beans, Strawberries, Pots (Red Duke of York), Peas, Corgettes baby! Yep, I get excited about my veg! We have a Courgette called 'Eight Ball', a round variety, which mixes it up a bit.

In the wider garden, the Roses hold so much beauty, we have all sorts, the Musk Rose border looks gorgeous under planted with Nepeta. Some of the Roses scrambling up through the trees are spectacular, with amazing names including Bobby James and Paul's Himalayan Musk. HG talks of them as if old friends!

Solitude

Time this week alone in the gardens and I have been so lucky with the weather and the peace and quiet. Now and again a visitor pops by and lets me know how much they are loving the garden, asking how old the Apple tunnels are and how many Gardeners the garden needs to keep it on top! More than we have I say!

Everywhere I look I can see what needs doing, what could be improved with a half hour here and a half hour there. But alas, never enough time.

At this time the weeds are full on and you cannot turn a blind eye when the Thistles are up with the Alliums. So much of my time is spent kneeling and sorting it out. Yet in-between I get to crop Strawberries, plant beautiful annuals we have grown from seed and nurture seedlings of Carrot and Beet poking up through the soil. My favourite time in the garden is the nurturing stage. The watering, weeding, pricking out, potting on. Knowing that a little time here and there and the plants will thrive and go on to show off their potential.

I rushed past the gate yesterday on my way somewhere and my eye was caught by the beautiful Chinonanthus virgincus in full flower against a blue sky. What a beauty. Stunning tassel type flowers (also known as the Fringe Tree), white and slightly fragrant. It just caught me by surprise. I walk past it day in, day out and then KABOOM, it flowers!

May

My gardening week this week has been varied and has reminded me how us Gardeners need to be hugely flexible in skill. As the garden season enters full flow, heavy machinery is required for mowing, trimming, pruning and the next minute we might be pricking out tiny seedlings to nurture onto health or tying in Sweet Pea stems. One false move and weeks of hard work sowing and nurturing could be over with a squashed stem and subsequent dead plant!

I think ultimately this is why I love to be Gardening. As a Mother of two active boys, my days of calm and concentration have been lost for quite a few years now. I know, I know, it will all return but right now, I love the chopping and changing in my day. I love achieving short goals and feeling a sense of pride. I also find it VERY hard to sit still for too long so this seems to be the perfect profession for me!

I had to take my youngest son to work this week as his school had a training day. It was so lovely to show him what I get up to. Every child should be out with a Gardener at some point in their life. He managed 4 hours of helping me with the hose, planting with me, learning the differences about watering seedlings and watering shrubs, hearing birds, feeling the wind. He wanted to come back the following day but school won instead.....

I do love May, as I have said before, yet this year we have been hit by frost and some of the gardens are a sad state indeed. At Heale, Wisteria that should be emerging into full beauty look like damp rags hanging from a washing line. Figs have been crumpled, even the Gunnera looks unhappy with the situation. Yet we did have fantastic Magnolias this year before the frost so you know, nature chops and changes and keeps us on our toes.

The Veg garden is coming along really nicely this week. Potatoes are showing (also frost damaged), Peas are flowering, Broad Beans, Salads have gone mad. I planted out Broccoli this week which I do love to grow and eat. I still get a pang of fear though with the old Brassica. So much potential trouble with them and the faff of netting. We have some Plantbelle hoops though and I really love them. Brilliant design and gorgeous to look at for years to come. I will be buying some for myself next pay cheque!

At Heale, the Japanese tea house which has stood over the River for over 100 years now is having a new roof. The skill of the Thatchers working on it is a great privilege to see. I doubt very much I will see this happen again in my lifetime. They have taken the thatch off in parts, right back to the original Bamboo structure. It does make you think of the men who first built it all those years ago.

Yesterday it was windy all day at Heale. Very drying for the plants and soil. And me! I felt truly weathered by home time. But a quick glance up now and then from my weeding amongst the flower borders and what a sight. Grasses and wild flowers being blown about, the Cercidiphyllum leaves rustling and not a soul around. 

Paris birthday trip

I haven't been writing for a while but I have continued to garden and work. For my birthday this week, I was lucky enough to visit Paris with my family.

I have been to the city a few times, the last time when my eldest was two but this was the first time I had taken both of my children. They were so excited to see the buzzy streets, musicians, river Seine and amazing architecture.

We made a visit on our last day to Les Jardins des Plantes, the Botanical Gardens of Paris. The boys went to the Menagerie whilst I had half an hour to mosey on through the gardens. I couldn't have done justice to the extraordinarily beautiful glasshouses so I didn't go in but I did get to see some of the plantings. The soil is so dry and dusty in Paris, it is in stark contrast to the soil I work with in England. It must make it difficult to display all varieties of plants but I did notice a huge Melianthus major that was enjoying the hot dry conditions, lots of Salvias and plants native to New Zealand such as the Sophora which has bright yellow pods hanging from thin stems. Also known as Kowhai.

All around Paris right now are the blossoming Judas trees (Cercis siliquastrum). They are so pretty and I cannot get enough of the way the flowers come straight off the trunk in some cases. They pop up everywhere; Jardins des Tuileries, along the Seine, Notre Dame, we saw some up by Sacre Coeur.

City life means that parks become a very important part of the landscape and offer a breath of fresh air to inhabitants. Paris has lots of them and it is a joy to escape the traffic and stroll through gardens along the Seine or find an iron gate off a street to wander through and find a park. One of the things I miss about living in London - the juxtaposition of city and park. The bustle, the escape and the ability to return to the bustle almost immediately.

Back to it and the gardens at Heale are delightful, so much to see, so lush, so beautiful. Greens and blossoms and all on its way. I have been sowing Roots, planting Salads, pricking out, sowing under glass and planting and staking our single cordon Sweet peas.

First crop

I cropped for the first time this year which got me really excited about the growing season ahead.

At Heale we had forced some of our Rhubarb. Forcing is the term used to make the plant grow quicker than usual in high temperatures and without light. This results in the stems of the Rhubarb growing tender and tall with the most amazing out of this world colour. The stems shocking pink and the leaves bright, gaudy, acidic yellow. The Rhubarb crown is mulched (for feeding purposes) and covered with a tall terracotta pot with a hole at the top, covered with a lid to prohibit the light. Usually the stems will be up to the lid and ready to crop in April. This year the plant told us what to do by pushing off the lid last week! "Pick me now, I am ready to eat".

We still have the robust Kale going from last season, beautiful to look at and to eat. 'Red Russian' is looking the best it has since sowing actually. It went through a stage of being rotten and the leaves turning to mush. A Winter and cold snap has refreshed it and the leaves that are left are small and beautiful. The leaves go from green to a purplish stem, then sometimes a dark purple on new growth. They are also kinked on the edge, like Rocket, so would be a looker on the plate. The Curly Kale we have grown is so tightly packed, the leaf is almost rubbery. The tight curls give a less refined leaf but once cooked, becomes tender.

It is so good for you, packed with vitamins, especially Vit K and Iron. Worth the growing pains.

The gardens at Heale are now once again open to the public and it is a joy to hear voices pottering about the garden and to engage with people who are interested in what we are up to.

I was lucky enough to spend some time in the Japanese garden last week - a treat. We spent some time weeding and mulching borders. Wet black soil clings to the river banks, matted with Hosta, Fern, clumps of Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris). The gentle bubbling of the water in the Japanese garden, make it a joy to work in. If you stop for a moment and think about the Gardeners who came over from Japan 100 years ago or more, to tread these very soils, it is just magic. Right now, in March, the fine beauty of Prunus Incisa Kojo-no-mai is shining out at you. So delicate, so pretty. Hard to pass by without stopping.

Growing. In more ways than one.

I have been working in all sorts of weather recently, freezing, wet, windy, icy, slippery, muddy. I love the wind but I am not so keen on muddy and wet. Soil cakes your feet, gloves need replacing every so often as they get wet through. You can't reach your secateurs without undoing layers (or ripping one side of your coat zip which is what I always end up doing). Layers get in the way, ride up, fall down and it is like trying to work in a space suit (I imagine. I have never given it a go).

Whilst I have been struggling along continuing to prune, prick over, dig, rake, weed, edge, cut back and pick up, all the while I have been drifting off into the warmer months in my head.

Earlier this week I saw a great cartoon depicting an image of what people see on the outside as success (an iceberg being success above the water, whilst what people don't see is all the work going on under the water. Determination, failure, hard work, good habits).

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CWwEGoYWsAAKjpe.jpg

It resonated with me as in my job in Horticulture, most people I see in the gardens when they are visiting, see the gardens in full swing. Most people say "aren't you lucky?" and "what a fabulous place to work?". Yes I am. Yes it is. BUT Winter is tough outdoors. You need to be focused. You need to be strong. You need to be resilient. Just like those seeds we sow and the plants we nurture through the frost and pests to grow. I too, am growing, as I work.

I know it will all be worth it. The Smell of the Daphne 'Jacqueline Postill' wafting past me right now in February. The buds pushing up from the soil from Peonies and Sedums. The Snowdrops dotting the floor with white beauty. The Sweet Pea seeds I have pushed into wet compost, urging them to come up after just one day!

It is all on its way.

Sluggish

The New Year is upon us. Each January, I, like many others, feel so sluggish and unmotivated. Why am I doing this? Why do I want to grow veg when I could just buy it? Why work in the rain and mud when I could be warm indoors?

So many questions and I often wonder if I will ever muster the energy to pull myself together and begin growing again.

Well, my first week back at work in the dark and rain and mud and I feel energised and ready to delve into seed catalogues again! I started slowly with my Tuesday client, weeding, turning and composting a large border. Transplanting Aster and Phlox that have grown too big for their boots. Removing Rose suckers. Trimming back Mahonia. A gentle introduction to the great outdoors again.

At Heale we continued with Rose and Wisteria pruning. Who couldn't enjoy a spot of gentle pruning? Knowing that each cut to a bud will give flowers and scent in just a few months time. I can almost see the blooms and smell them as I work. 

Working alongside our volunteer, Rachel, who sees every job with fresh eyes, is a joy. It reminds me why I am doing this and how even in the depths of Winter, beauty can be found all around. The moon was full on the drive to work one day, silhouetted trees before it, beautiful.

A quick visit to my allotment with my youngest was a pure joy! We found Leeks and Kale and even integrated chat about his favourite computer game Plants Vs Zombies. I wonder what a Raspberry might look like if it was in the game? And what super powers would Kale have?

It is possible, with a bit (lot) of work to keep us all motivated with the great outdoors. And definitely, it is worth the effort.